In This essay we are primarily concerned with the organisation of work in the basic »working unit« of the economy, the firm. First, we trace the development of various important relevant ideas through classical writings and their successors up to some notable recent contributions.
We also, argue that the main stream of political economy has indeed to focus on irrelevant problems, due to the misunderstanding or simply lack of economic theory. We note a beginning change of orientation in political economy and we attempt to provide some rigorous foundation, on the basis of modern economic theory, of an adequate political economy of the firm. We also enter the extensive modern debate on the positive economics of the firm.
We offer a new synthesis of the main conflicting schools, and use this as a foundation for our normative political economics of the firm and work organisation
